Brian Smith accepted his London Irish side were not good enough in their 15-3 defeat at Sale Sharks, but insisted his pack are being harshly penalised at scrums.

Exiles never recovered after Sale winger Tom Brady had opened the scoring midway through the first half when he pounced on a Danny Cipriani kick that had skipped up over James O'Connor's head.

Irish's director of rugby said: "Sale played the conditions very well. They got a flier with that pretty crazy bounce on the cross-kick and seven points is always going to be a lot of points on a night like tonight."

David Seymour was then driven over to leave Smith's men trailing 12-0 at half-time at the AJ Bell Stadium.

Irish's boss said: "We have to put our hands up. They got us on a shift drive and scored from that.

"That's fair play, but I'm still a little disappointed that we had almost 10 scrum penalties against us.

"We are not a scrum that is going backwards. When scrums go down there is binding on arms and what have you, and we seem to be the team that is always on the receiving end.